Value of Work-Labor-Sweat—Wisconsin Recall Elections



Madison, Wisconsin State Capitol; February 26, 2011
President Lincoln on Labor

Common ground.

There is honor and dignity in labor. We have that in common.

There is honor choosing our public servants in this republic; its our right in a democracy and we have that in common.

There is innovation in organizing to sell our work, a sacred product protected by the right to freely associate and organize. We all share this right.

Republicans today disagree with these propositions; revering the emissions of Ayn Rand over the vision of civil rights activists Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (1964), President Lincoln and FDR.

Wisconsin citizens find common ground in protecting the rights of our neighbors, our fellow citizens: To vote, to work, to exercise our liberty.

And that is what the Wisconsin recall elections are about.



Human being

"Many were lost in the struggle for the right to vote: Jimmy Lee Jackson, a young student, gave his life; Viola Liuzzo, a White mother from Detroit, called 'nigger lover,' and brains blown out at point blank range; [Michael] Schwerner, [Andrew] Goodman and [James] Chaney -- two Jews and a Black -- found in a common grave, bodies riddled with bullets in Mississippi; the four darling little girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. They died that we might have a right to live."

When we divide, we cannot win. We must find common ground as the basis for survival and development and change and growth. ... We stand at the end of a long dark night of reaction. We stand tonight united in the commitment to a new direction. For almost eight years we've been led by those who view social good coming from private interest, who view public life as a means to increase private wealth. They have been prepared to sacrifice the common good of the many to satisfy the private interests and the wealth of a few. ... We are a better nation than that."
- Rev. Jesse Jackson, 1988 Democratic National Convention Address;
July 19, 1988. Omni Coliseum; Atlanta, Georgia

Enraged Racists

Wrote a few posts at Daily Kos, Folkbum and MAL Contends about the racist Jim Broussard cutting down and stealing an American flag on someone's private property in Reno, Nevada, last week, while brandishing a military knife, and daring anyone to take the flag back.

Most of the hostile e-mail and comments received spoke indignantly of the failure of "they/them (Mexicans)" to assimilate into our country, and misstating First Amendment doctrine and the rights of freedom generally. Below is an e-mail that is my personal favorite and the most revealing.

The e-mail still has me wondering if someone can actually be that dumb, and it sounds like something a couple of friends would say when they mock racists and other assorted ignoramuses:

I'm assuming you are the author of this piece:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/4/112018/932
that talks about Jim Broussard, the man who cut down the mexican flag in Reno.

If you are, then i would like to express my DISGUST at how you can call a patriotic American a "racist" & "bigot" and how you can defend a Third-Worlder flying a mexican flag above the flag of this country, the United States of America.

The Third-Worlder has no respect for this country he (probably illegally) resides in. And you have no respect for this country for defending him. Scum like you have no place in this great nation. Scum like you contribute nothing but chaos. You come forth riding a Pale Horse. (And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth ~~Revelation 6:8)

But by all means, go ahead and encourage some sort of bogus legal action against this patriot, Jim Broussard. In the eyes of true Americans, those who do so will be considered fools and traitors. And they shouldn't bother enlisting the aid of Jesse Jackson (fraud) & Al Sharpton (criminal). Those two morons have used the "racist" label so much, it's become archaic. When they throw "boycotts", they are ignored even by Blacks.

What Jim Broussard did is something all Americans should do: Stand up for their country and stop the invasion of mexican garbage.

Signed,
A White American

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Mendez v. Westminster and the Racist Jim Broussard

Update:

Here's video of the racist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nONjlZ8YMkA&mode=related&search=

Update II: ACLU defends flag display at tavern.

Update III: A reader at Kos suggests that the bar owner certainly has a case against Broussard for trespassing, destruction of private property, brandishing a weapon (assault), among other causes for civil and criminal action.

Madison, Wisconsin - After helping winterize my family’s home this weekend, my father gave me some stamps commemorating the 60th anniversary of the desegregation case, Mendez v. Westminster School District (California) (1947).

I had never heard of that case, but it turns out Mendez is the Mexican-American and Latino legal precedent to Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the landmark decision still despised by racists the nation-over for its obliteration of the bigoted “separate but equal" doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

After reading up on Mendez, it made me think of the millions of heroes whose names we will never know who have advanced the cause for social justice in this country.

Thurgood Marshall, who argued Brown before the U.S. Supreme Court seven years after Mendez helped write an amicus brief filed by the NAACP in the Mendez case, along with briefs filed by the ACLU, the American Jewish Congress, and the Japanese American Citizens League.

Who knows all the forces that won the Mendez victory, but the fact that World War II saw legions of Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients may have helped.

The fight against discrimination and hate has countless allies and many enemies, seen and unseen.

Racist Fascist Jim Broussard

So, it came as no great surprise to me yesterday when a veterans’ e-mail newsletter that I receive boasted that an American believed he possessed the right to invade the private property of a Reno, Nevada tavern owned by a Mexican-American and cut down a Mexican flag flying above an American flag (pictured above).

According to WorldNetDaily.com: “After hearing a Reno bar was flying a Mexican flag above a U.S. flag, an angered U.S. Army veteran took matters into his own hands, drove to the site and cut down the banners in front of a stunned group of Hispanic patrons.”

The bigot in question identified himself as one “Jim Broussard,” according to WorldNetDaily.com, and he is one of the allies of discrimination and hate.

WorldNetDaily.com quotes Broussard:

"I'm Jim Broussard, and I took this flag down in honor of my country with … a knife from the United States Army. … I'm a veteran; I'm not going to see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us. But I want somebody to fight me for this flag. They're not going to get it back. … I was immediately infuriated and felt a duty to do something about it. I feel there's a lot of this turning-our-heads-on-things in concern with the Hispanic community and the things they do. They seem impervious to our laws in a lot of situations."

I’ve had my dealings with the likes of racists like Jim Broussard before and they share several traits: Ignorance, hate, cowardice, and a sociopathic sense of entitlement to inflict their authoritarian, sick vision of: White America rules!

My ethnic heritage is Irish-Mexican. The Mexican part comes from my father who hails from Aurora, Illinois. And I have been both the recipient of oral history and eyewitness experience in seeing how Mexican-Americans handle the likes of the bigoted Jim Broussard.

Put it this way, it’s direct and confrontational. And Jim Broussard and his pathetic moment of racist pride would not win the day were he to attempt to pull this crap in a Mexican bar in Aurora. The SOB would have an even worse time in an Irish bar.

In May last year, I was privileged to attend a ceremony in Aurora honoring a relative who was a pioneering Hispanic police officer and listen to his daughter who ridiculed the racists (after all we are all “spics,” as the bigots say) for the fools that all racists are.

I would have loved to see Broussard there.

There is a report that the Hispanic community in Reno is considering legal and political action against Broussard.

That’s a good idea.

Brother Jesse and Brother Al, I think we may just need you really soon over in Reno.
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